Expansion: The SEC's Best Case Scenario

Allegedly, the Big Ten reached out to Mizzou, Nebraska, Notre Dame, and Rutgers to join their conference.

With all the talk of conference realignments and "super conferences" there is plenty of speculation about what will happen to the SEC.

Since the Big 12 is seemingly being cherry picked for teams, they seem to be a dying conference. Why continue if you can't have 12 teams and a championship game, since championship game performance has become essential to final BCS rankings?

So if the SEC was to scoop up Big 12 survivors who would they be?

If the Big 12 was to disband then the SEC should throw a lifeline to four teams: Texas, Texas A&M, Oklahoma, and Oklahoma State. Geographically it would make sense. It also would bring four of the Big 12's marquee teams into the lucrative television deal of the SEC Network.

Texas, of course, is the biggest fish of these four teams. Wherever Texas goes will dictate realignment for the rest of the country. But, you have to assume that Texas won't leave unless they can bring their traditional rivals Texas A&M and Oklahoma with them.

Oklahoma can't leave the Big 12 without bringing their Bedlam rival OK State with them also.

A shift in divisions would easily make room for these four teams. Alabama and Auburn could shift to the Eastern division leaving room for these four teams to fill out the Western Division. The shift would reintroduce old SWC rivalries back into the SEC.

With the competitiveness of Texas on a national scale and the SEC's recent dominance (four straight BCS titles. BEWARE THE THUMB!) it would make a true "super conference".

The writing is on the wall for the Big 12. The Northern teams are wanted by the Big 10 and the remaining teams are the nuclear arms in the arsenal race that is FBS football of the near future.